justice/mercy/love

the link to emergent convention downloads just got posted and i'm avoiding housework, so of course i decided to go and take a look. btw - the parodies are hysterical (being married to a youth pastor i really liked that one the best - esp. the part about 'even your bald head looks cool').

so i'm blindly downloading and listening/reading and i came across the monologues by mark scandrette. i wasn't at the convention nor do i even know who this man is, but his first monologue hits me like a lightening bolt to my soul.

"My rust colored AMC matador barrels down the road toward justice/mercy/love"

you see we actually had a 'rust colored amc matador' when i was a teenager - i truly thought there was only one. it was the UGLIEST car imaginable - why would they ever make more than one?

it was because of that reference that i even read read the monologue now, i was saving it to read at a later date. but that third line, it caught my eye like a flash.

i hated that car. it represented everything about our family that i resented. those days of riding in that car filled me with shame. we lived in a town where most drove bmw's, mercedes and other interesting, beautiful foreign cars.

my father used to get so angry at me because every time we drove through town i would duck down in the back seat, mortified to be seen in such an ugly vehicle. he'd sternly say 'if it's good enough to put food on the table, it's good enough to drive'. he worked for amc and we owned every crappy used car they ever made - that horrible seafoam green station wagon, a brown hornet, a yellow gremlin and even a baby blue pacer. but the matador was by far the worst. big, noticeable and horrible in all it's 'rust colored glory'.

in my memory that car represents a road to injustice/law/shame, not justice/mercy/love.

i like where mark's car is going much better.

justice/mercy/love

Lonely Highways, Dusty Fields
flatland midwest humidity
My rust colored AMC matador barrels down the road toward justice/mercy/love

You Leave Home to Jericho you roam
through fallow fields and winter trees stripped bare
skeleton branches reaching for the air

and they are waiting...

waiting for the sons and daughters to be revealed.
Waiting for the hands that will soothe and heal.

And down the road

I see the Nazarene, embraced as Messiah and Rabbi King

I see our desperation for substance become living abundance

Loosening the chains of injustice
Breaking the yoke of oppression
sheltering the stranger
feeding the hungry
clothing the naked
comforting the sick
welcoming the weak

and WE will no longer turn away from our own flesh and blood

WE will be called Repairer of broken walls restorer of streets with dwellings.

The road ahead is a road to justice/mercy/love

by Mark Scandrette

road trip anyone?